


the most clever thing

by Chaifootsteps



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Childbirth, Dalish Warden Origin, Depression, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 22:31:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5761336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaifootsteps/pseuds/Chaifootsteps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last days of Aislin Mahariel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the most clever thing

Aislin Mahariel never wanted to die.

Not even when she was much younger and the days blurred together, and the mere thought of getting up and going to the river to wash seemed to take more out of her than she was sure anyone could bear.

Even at the end, and through the worst of it, she did not want to die. 

 

* * *

 

 For the last few months, she clung to the hope that the baby would save her. She took every flutter and kick and held it tight, like the fraying rope in an icy river it was, running fingers over her swollen belly when the nights proved sleepless and trying not to think of the future they’d so painstakingly planned for the three of them.

If only she could see its face, she told herself. If only she could hold it in her arms. It would happen the way a bonfire happens -- an ember that catches the tinder, glows hot with epiphany, then shoots off towards the sky. The warmth would come flooding back into the places Terys ripped open when he went. She would have a reason to _stay._

The pains came first, sharp and low. Then the warm liquid that smelled like honey and looked like weak strawberry wine running down the inside of her leg. Nearly a day later, she was trembling and sweat-slick, looking up at the stars as she heard the shrill voice crying.

“Congratulations,  _da’assan_ ,” said the midwife. Smiling, because even the elves of the Sabrae clan could not find reason to hate her at a time like this. “It’s a fine, healthy little girl.”

She passed the mewling rabbit skin bundle across Aislin’s heaving chest, and the new mother could only look on in wonder. Pink with a flattened mop of damp hair; ears too big, head too small; face pinched with displeasure..

She was, without a doubt, the most perfect little thing the Creators had ever made.

And Aislin wept, because it was not enough.

 

* * *

 

 But oh, how she tried. Every time she held the baby to her breast, she scraped, scrounged, and dug for an incentive to endure the weight of even one more year.

Her own eyes, dark blue and narrow. Terys’s nose. Her own lips. Terys’s frown. Wondering how she would grow into it all.

The time Aislin was too long in picking her up and feeding her, and she evacuated her bladder out of what seemed to be sheer spite. That’s the sort of thing you store away for the day your child meets someone they want to bond.

The fact that these Sabrae elves were poor hunters, especially when it came to birds. Hunting, when she could find the strength for it, was the one and only thing she ever did well. Why not stay around just long enough to teach her to shoot a dove properly?

_The world outside the aravel. Ilen shooting her filthy looks whenever she woke past sunrise. Gentle, persistent reminders that she was strong enough to go back to hunting._

Why not?

 

* * *

 

 The day they had made the baby was all blue skies and long grass -- two blankets overlapping and one pilfered skin bottle of cider from her clan’s camp. When she’d just begun to show, they’d laid in that same grass and in one another’s arms, and talked like parents-to-be.   

If the baby had been a boy, Aislin had rather wanted to call him Eliel -- the sound of hills, sunlight, a bell at early morning. But if it was a girl, it was all too clear what Terys’s heart was set on.

 _“I’ve always liked Itha."_ 'One who sees.' _It rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?”_

 

* * *

 

 Ashalle was not kind to her in the way she so desperately needed, but neither was she cruel. She made her cups of nettle tea and told her she was looking much better today. She did not accuse her of lazing around, nor did she criticize the way she held the baby.

“How have things been for you, since...well...”

“...Difficult. Very difficult.” And Ashalle had nodded deeply.

“Oh, of course. Of course. It’s times like these one can only trust in the Creators’ guidance, and that our loved ones are resting comfortably in the Beyond.”

She was tempted to offer some monosyllabic agreement. To leave it at that. But it was the only time anyone had so much as breached the subject of Terys since it happened, and before she realized it...

“...Some days, I truly envy him. Dying might be difficult, but death...it seems very easy.”

Ashalle set down the teacup that had been halfway to her lips. The gentle, seemingly ever present smile was long gone.

“You musn’t say such things. _Ever._ Like it or not, you did survive that awful night, and it will do you no good to dwell in self-pity. It will certainly do your daughter no good. Do you understand?”

Aislin nodded just once.

The sun was drifting toward the treetops as she drained her cup of tea for the last time.

 

* * *

 

 That evening, she lay Itha on her chest and told her everything there was to know about her father.

“He was a great man, da’len. The greatest I ever knew. He could pick up his staff, point it at the campfire, and just like that! Dragons sculpted from the flames, no bigger than your finger, flying around in circles simply because they could. 

And he was a gentle man, too. So soft -- too soft, some of them said. Never harmed anyone, not even shemlen, and used to use his magic to send the chickens to sleep before the cooks cut their heads off. That was in the days when his clan still kept chickens. They don’t anymore. 

“When I had my bad days, he was always right by my side, ready to hold me if I needed him. Just waiting patiently for me to rejoin the land of the living. I wanted so much to be the person he deserved, but I never once felt like I had to put on a mask for him. When you grow up, if you should decide you want to bond, that’s the person I want you to seek out. Alright?”

Itha, content with the lull in between suckling and napping, looked up at her with those solemn, six week old eyes.

She talked until there was nothing more to say, then talked for another half an hour. By then, the baby’s eyes were closing. One final time, Aislin tried to love her enough to make all the rest worth enduring.

When she could not, she waited for the tears to come. But they never did. And that, more than anything else, cemented the inevitability in her eyes.

Wrapping her daughter securely, she lay her on their bedroll. Kissed past her tiny tuft of bangs, and kept kissing long after wisps of breath told her her child was beyond hearing.

“I’m so sorry, _da’len_. I couldn’t be strong, so you’re going to have to be that much stronger. And if you’re not all the time, that’s okay, but you _will_ be strong. I promise you. And babae and I...we’ll watch you if we can.”

She touched her fingertips to the round cheek, softer than thistledown. If the baby had woken, perhaps she might have stayed. Perhaps not. 

But the baby did not wake.

“Good-bye, Itha.  _Dar'eth Shiral_  .”

Then, without ever looking back, she turned and walked out of the aravel. Out of the camp. Out of range of the fire’s glow, and the voices that called her back.

The moonlight fell on the forest floor like there was no place else it would rather have been. Somewhere past the meandering stream lay the old canyon that was said to serve as a bed for the Dread Wolf. Aislin had seen it only once before in the nighttime, silver water in a great, deep cup that ran on forever. 

Clear, constant. 

Shining.

**Author's Note:**

> _you say you want to die,_   
>  _but you are unsure of_   
>  _what comes after death._   
>  _Does the pain leave,_   
>  _or does it stay?_   
>  _the most clever thing about life is,_   
>  _that as long as we are alive,_   
>  _we'll never know_


End file.
